How Pennsylvania's Negligence Laws May Affect Your Personal Injury Claim

You might be able to file a personal injury claim in Pennsylvania if someone hurt you because they were careless. But the law also wants to know if you are partly to blame for what happened. This idea, which is also known as contributory or comparative negligence, can affect your claim. Before you go to court, you need to understand this part of the law.

Pittsburgh is in the western part of Pennsylvania. People know it for its hills, bridges, and busy streets. Here, cars, motorcycles, and pedestrians frequently collide on small, uneven roads. If you live in or near Pittsburgh, skilled Pittsburgh personal injury lawyers can help you figure out how the state’s rules on negligence might apply to your case. Before you move forward with your case, here’s what you need to know.

What Counts as Negligence in Pennsylvania?

When someone doesn’t act with reasonable care, they are negligent. That carelessness must directly cause someone else’s injury. To prove a negligence claim, you need to show:

• The other person owed you a duty of care.
• That duty was broken.
• Their actions caused your injuries.
• You suffered real losses, like medical bills or time off from work.

Pennsylvania law will still check to see if you did anything wrong, even if you can prove these things.

Pennsylvania’s 51% Rule Can Change Everything

A rule in Pennsylvania called “modified comparative negligence” determines how much compensation you can get for an accident based on how much you were to blame for it. This system assigns each person a certain amount of blame and adjusts the compensation amount based on that. The rule is very strict: it draws a hard line at 51%.

Under this 51% rule:

• You can still get money for losses even if you are found to be 50% or less to blame for the accident. But your compensation will be reduced based on how much you were at fault.

• If you are legally responsible for 51% or more of the damage, you cannot get any money back, no matter how severe your injuries are.

For example, if a jury awards you $80,000 in damages but also says you were 30% to blame for the accident, you would only get $56,000. That 30% reduction shows exactly how much fault you have. This means that even small differences in who is to blame can have a big effect on how much you get compensated in the end.

Why This Affects Your Claim’s Value

If an insurance company is in Pennsylvania, they know how the comparative negligence rules work and often use this to their advantage when negotiating a settlement. They often try to make you feel like you’re partly to blame for the accident, even if it’s only a little. They can legally reduce the amount they have to pay by shifting some of the blame to you.

The other side may say you were partly to blame, so your lawyer will need to fight back with strong evidence like police reports, witness statements, photos, and expert testimony. Every percentage point counts. For example, if you can show that you were only 20% at blame instead of 40%, you could get thousands of dollars more.

That’s why it’s so important to carefully document everything. Be careful about what you say to insurance adjusters and keep your medical records and pictures of your injuries and the scene of the accident. Even a small mistake or vague statement could be used against you to put more blame on you, which could lead to less or no compensation.